Snyman admits Springboks shocked by Irish breakdown prowess

Munster lock RG Snyman was left to rue South Africa's missed chances as the world champions fell to defeat to Ireland on Saturday night.

The Springboks are now playing catch-up in Pool B and, if Ireland beat Scotland on 7 October, cannot finish ahead of Andy Farrell's side, even if they take care of Tonga in their fourth and final group game.

The 13-8 loss in Stade de France was South Africa's first World Cup defeat in their last nine games, the previous reverse coming in the opening match of the 2019 tournament against New Zealand.

"I think as far as Test matches go, that really was up there," said the 28-year-old lock, who came on in the 47th minute.

"It was a good contest between number one and number two in the world. We probably could have used our opportunities better, so that's what we’ve got to work on.

"I must say, in the 30 Tests I’ve had, that’s definitely up there. It was definitely a physical battle and they really stuck in there.

"[The physicality is] obviously the way we go about things, I just think [taking our] opportunities are the biggest thing to work on.

Snyman made four tackles and ran for 18 metres, making a superb midfield line break before getting hauled down.

On finding himself in open country, he said: "Sometimes when us forwards make various line breaks we never really know what to do with the ball. I should probably get some tips from Damian [de Allende] or somebody like that.

"I don’t really think [Ireland] brought anything different to what we had seen, they just really stuck to their guns.

"I think they were probably the better team because every opportunity they got, they used it.

"They have great guys who can get over the ball, so we definitely expected that, but I don’t think we expected it to